Did not eat her dinner, Do I not give her the insulin?

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Amanda

Amanda

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I posted here on Thursday after we found out our cat Kazi had diabetes. She has been on 1 unit of vetsulin twice a day since then (need to call about changing to another form). This afternoon she vomited- tonight she had little interest in her dinner. Only ate a tiny portion. Unlike a lot of the cats she has not had a big appetite- exactly the opposite. I am assuming I do not give her the insulin tonight?

Thanks,
Amanda
 
well...you do not want to give insulin on an empty stomach or she may OD but she needs food and insulin...you could give her 1/4 tablet pepcid ac (not complete) and syringe feed some watered down food and then give her insulin....anything else going on?
 
Hi Amanda,

If Kazi still doesn't want to eat in the morning you should take her to see the vet. Maybe the pepcid will help if she is just feeling a little stomach ache, but if she misses more than one meal she needs to be seen. You just can't have her not getting insulin and food - bad combo for a diabetic. Do you have a can of another flavor you can try? Maybe pour some tuna water over her food - or just give her some regular tuna (assuming Kazi likes tuna but not all cats do).

Best,
Pam & Layla
 
I convinced her to eat some more- she didn't finish it but she ate the majority of it so I gave her the insulin. Before the diagnosis all 3 of our cats were fed together- but I think that she has been picking at her food for awhile. I wonder if some other issue is at play here...it took quite a bit to get her to eat more for me.
 
She still seems very excited for her meals and then eats very little. I can usually get her to eat more by shaking the bowl and holding it while she eats, but this morning she ate very little even with me doing that. So no shot again. Yesterday she was howling for food so I fed her a tiny bit and she ate everything quickly, I think she likes the food just fine so I am at a loss.

I am thinking going out and buying some of the canned options listed here would be a good thing to try but I worry about it dropping her blood sugar too much. I wonder if stopping the insulin temporarily and seeing where we are at just on the food switch would be something to try. The vet I see at our clinic is not there in the early part of the week so I will be calling Thursday to see what she has to say.
 
THere are so many possible causes here that it is hard to tell you which way to go. She needs to eat and she needs insulin. Sometimes, when cats are first diagnosed, they feel like crap. They are hungry but they won't eat. So you get in a nasty viscious circle. In our case, I had to syringe feed Squeak for several days so that I could safely give him insulin. I tested his urine for ketones as this is a very risky period (insufficient food and insufficient insulin). I was not testing blood glucose levels yet and I should have been.

You can give appetite stimulants, force feed, test for ketones and learn to test blood glucose levels...that would be my suggestion as otherwise you are running too many risks

Jen
 
What food are you feeding, and have you tried another brand?

Are you testing for ketones?

What are her glucose levels?

Pam
 
I am feeding the dry Purina DM my vet gave me at the moment... she has been on dry all her life and seems to prefer it to wet. I am not testing her for anything - am waiting on a starter kit to get here so that I can try to test her BG. Once I see how that goes we'll see about switching to wet.

She ate very well for me tonight- up until her diagnosis thursday she was fed once per day at around 5:30. Maybe she just needs to adjust to being fed at 9AM and 9PM, I don't know. I feel like maybe we are making a bit of progress though....she seems to be gaining some weight back already.

This is incredibly stressful!
 
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